Sports   (Talk about balls here.)

owd codger,this might change your mind about Whelans role in the sale,
From the Wigan Rl fan site Cherry and White

The Sale of Central Park
The introduction and move to summer rugby in 1996 saw Wigan become emerged in financial difficulty. They had built up debts of ?3 million and the clubs board members decided the answer to the financial problems was to sell Central Park.

Local Businessman Dave Whelan, owner of Wigan Athletic Football Club, wanted to buy Central Park and have Latics share the ground with the Warriors. He offered ?4.5m for the ground and pledged to spend a further ?12.5m to turn it into a 20,000 all seater stadium for both clubs. Shareholders had voted for the idea but the Wigan board had another offer to consider from the Tesco Supermarket chain, which was rumoured to be closer to ?10 million. If the Tesco offer was accepted, Wigan would be homeless. The idea was that Wigan would share with Bolton Wanderers new Reebok Stadium, which at the time was being built.

Central Park was the historic home of Wigan Rugby League and the fans were outraged at the suggestion of Wigan moving four miles out of town to Bolton's Reebok Stadium.

In late February 1997 news emerged that Wigan were holding talks with Bolton about a ground share. Dave Whelan responded to the news by offering to virtually wipe out the club's debts within 48 hours. In early March Tesco increased their offer to buy Central Park to ?12.5 million and news broke that the ground sale was to "go-ahead". Fans held a protest outside Central Park ahead of a pre season friendly against Castleford whilst other fans chose to boycott the game. Some fans even travelled down to Tesco Headquarters and protested there! The Wigan fans simply did not want the club to move to Bolton, even if it was for a temporary period. They could not believe the board could sell the ground without a permanent new home being in place.

The Wigan board was made up of four people, Jack Robinson, Arthur Thomas, Tom Rathbone and John Martin. They had a vote over Whelan's offer and Martin, who ran the Riverside Club at Central Park, was the only member of the board who voted for it. The other three voted against as they were holding out for an increased offer from Tesco and thus seeing us move out of the town to Bolton. Following the vote Martin resigned has he had become frustrated by the board's apparent lack of urgency to agree the Whelan plan despite shareholders voting in favour of the move.

As the month wore on over 200 disgruntled shareholders met to discuss the controversial decision to sell Central Park to Tesco. They also backed a petition calling for the removal of chairman Jack Robinson and Mick Rathbone from the board immediately.

Into May 1997 and shareholders had decided they wanted to oust Jack Robinson as chairman. A shareholders action group claimed the board sold Central Park to Tesco without consultation after previously agreeing to accept a rescue package from millionaire Dave Whelan. Former player Phil Clarke was offered to the shareholders as the man to lead the ousting bid. The group's next move will be a circular to the club's 1500 shareholders seeking support for their attempt to remove Mr Robinson and his vice-chairman Tom Rathbone at an Emergency General Meeting on May 20.

A week before the shareholders EGM, Wigan unveil details of a proposed new super stadium. But critics of the board fear that if the team moves out of town to Bolton Wanderers' new stadium at Horwich they will never return to Wigan. Robinson had met the shareholders' action group that week but their spokesman Ernie Benbow said at the time that "he was unable to give any categorical assurances about a site in Wigan."

At the same time Dave Whelan unveiled plans to build a new 25,000 seater stadium for Wigan Athletic at Robin Park but he refused to open ground share negotiations with the Wigan board after the collapse of his Central Park rescue package earlier this year.

On 20th May Wigan shareholders held the EGM and Jack Robinson survived, for now. Robinson won a vote of confidence 484 to 400 while fellow board member, Rathbone held on by 489 to 407. So Robinson was still chairman but Wigan were still homeless. The wrangling was far from over.

June 1997 saw the Wigan team embark on month long trip down under for the World Club Challenge. The trip had quietened the ground move saga but as they returned Jack Robinson faced a new vote of confidence from the shareholders. A newspaper reported that an associate gathered proxy votes for the original EGM in May by fraudulent methods. The paper claimed someone was instructed to fill in forms for shareholders who were believed to have died so they could be used as votes in favour of the two Wigan directors. Robinson reacted by saying "(The claims) are totally untruthful. This is just part of a smear campaign which has been going on by a certain group of people who want me out of the club."

On August 19th 1997 Jack Robinson and Tom Rathbone resigned from the Wigan board. Then Wigan Coach Eric Hughes revealed that the pair had their homes damaged and their lives threatened. Following the resignations the Rugby Football League's financial department were called in by the club to investigate its cash flow position. Arthur Thomas was the only remaining board member left so it was he who became temporary chairman. With Robinson gone John Martin, who earlier had resigned from the board, offered to ease the club's financial problems with a 750,000 interest free loan. But the offer was conditional on the Warriors staying in Wigan and rejecting a temporary move to Bolton. He made the offer to bide the club time to negotiate a deal to move to proposed Robin Park stadium with Wigan Athletic on a permanent basis."

It was finally announced on October 29th 1997 that Wigan would not be moving to the Reebok Stadium. Mike Nolan, who owned finance and car leasing businesses in Wigan, took over as chairman of the club from Arthur Thomas. He was joined on the board by John Martin who returned after his row with the old regime. Tesco agreed to let the Warriors stay on at Central Park until the end of 1999, when they would then join up with Wigan Athletic at there new stadium which was about to be built Robin Park.